|
Before the Old and New Testament of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Noah's Ark in a rocket ship. "The most frightening discovery of all time" is detected at a South African observatory and delivered to America by the cocky aviator (Richard Derr), a small matter of two cosmic orbs on their way to flattening the Earth. (Dissolve from the revelation to a restaurant, where the unwitting messenger lights his cigarette with a $100 bill: "I've always wanted to do this.") With not quite a year left, the professor (Larry Keating), his daughter (Barbara Rush) and her fiancé (Peter Hansen) lay out the only spaceship out of the planet. United Nations ninnies scoff at it, the paralyzed misanthrope (John Hoyt) finances it, a placard hangs over its construction ("Waste everything except time"). Scientists and farm animals (and the tepid romantic triangle) are guaranteed a spot in the vessel, the Bible receives a privileged spot on the shelf—not so much doomsday as moving day, "in an instant it is upon you." Newsreel footage registers a world brought to its penitent knees, still photography a deserted metropolis. It's not until lava spills onto cardboard and a flood submerges the maquettes that a Rudolph Maté film effectively becomes a George Pal production, when the marauding cosmic marbles turn the landscape red and the tycoon anticipates Dr. Strangelove's climactic rise from the wheelchair. Themes dear to DeMille and Gance (and Irwin Allen later on), the last sunset on the window of the departing rocket before a passed-out audience, the first sunrise like a Chuck Jones backdrop scored to heavenly choruses. "The new world isn't for us. It's for the young." Satire comes courtesy of Gilbert (Moonraker) and von Trier (Melancholia). With Hayden Rorke, Frank Cady, Stephen Chase, and Rachel Ames.
--- Fernando F. Croce |